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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23030743">Perjury</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverinia/pseuds/Silverinia'>Silverinia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Good Fight (TV), The Good Wife (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Cheating, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, I Blame Tumblr, Idiots in Love, McHart being problematic, Smut, season two bullshit because I'm an asshole</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 13:21:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,624</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23030743</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverinia/pseuds/Silverinia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mr. McVeigh, have you ever been charged with perjury in any case?"</p><p>(Episode-filler for 2x08 'Day 457', The Good Fight)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Diane Lockhart/Kurt McVeigh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Day 4, 11:27 pm (Prologue)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So... last year, I believe it was in summer, an anon on tumblr requested an episode filler for a specific off-screen scenario in 2x08. And since I don't have my shit together, it's now many months later and the result is a multi-chapter. The word count per chapter varies roughly from 300 to 10k words, so yes, this is a mess and so am I.</p><p>Many thanks to AmphoraeImpetus and Baranskini who have been cheering me on during this hiatus and are just the loveliest people you could find. You guys are the best ❤</p><p>Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <strong><em>my heart’s been aching since you’ve gone and left it beating, a hopeless search for home;</em> <br/></strong>
    <strong><em>but now I’m here with nothing left for me to find,</em> <br/></strong>
    <strong>
      <em>except for my reflection from that I tried to hide<br/></em>
    </strong>
  </p>
  <p> </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Her fingers were shaking when they left their tight grip on the cold, golden metal of the doorknob. The door fell shut, leaving the sounds of the city night behind her with a bang as if to emphasize the sudden, sharp bite of silence in the apartment tucking her into a cool embrace that left her shuddering.</p><p>Tolstoy once wrote, “We are asleep until we fall in Love!”. She’d been young and naïve when she had first read those words in the old, yellowed pages of her father’s worn out copy of War and Peace that smelled of old bookshops, of reading by the fireplace with lighting too dim to be deemed appropriate to allow her to stare at its tiny, black letters for hours, and the several houses it had lived in, of her dad’s skin, the faint trace of masculine cologne his hair and the rich fabric of his suits always used to wear with pride, of memories too old to be hers at the time, young and hopeful as she had been, young and as hopeful as the exclamation mark that ended the quote had needed her to be in order to win her trust and let her believe it. But Tolstoy had never cared to state what happened to the awake after love had failed them. He had never cared to mention how to find a way back to sleep.</p><p>And all she knew now, when the quote passed her mind again all these years later, was that she was craving to find sleep again like a chronic insomniac to stop her mind from spiraling, her heart as outworn as the wrinkly cover of her father’s book.</p><p>Her cell phone buzzed to life in her purse again and she did not need to take it out and look at the bright, cold light of the display to know who was calling, only cursed herself for momentarily considering to take it out and answer.</p><p>But she couldn’t. Because this was it and there was no need to keep postponing an ending that she had already delayed for far too long. And so she dropped her purse on the dresser in the hallway, shrugged off her coat and hung it up on the rack, kicked off her high heels and stood still to sit with the feeling of listening to the audible vibration of the device stopping eventually, trying to figure out if what she was feeling was a rush of relief or regret.</p><p>It was like the end of a terrible song, the final page of a disappointing novel, like the sunset introducing the night to a horrible day that had dragged out for much too long to be poetic anymore.</p><p>It was the end. And while it was painful to accept, she knew she had to accept that it was right.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Day 1, 11:26 pm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"11:30. I'll leave the door unlocked."</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This fic is rated explicit for smut, so beware of ~the~ sex, you little sinners.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She heard his car when he pulled over into the driveway, picturing the curl of his lips beneath his moustache as he one-handedly pulled on the steering wheel on her mind’s own accord, the stern expression he always wore when he was concentrated the same way she would wear the scent of expensive perfume on her skin, by choice, a conscious reflection of what part of their insides they dared to share with the world. And he had always been willing to share it all without boundaries or the smallest trace of shame and regret, no fear in any fiber of his body, no thought wasted on the fear of getting hurt.</p><p>The rattling sound of the engine that belonged to his old truck and was undeniably tied to his arrival, she recognized it as if it were the clumsily noisy padding of his familiar footsteps in the house, sneaking down the street and finding their way back to her as he always did eventually.</p><p>Always. And even though she had been trying to shrug off the feeling for far too long now, it washed her in what would always be the strongest and, without a doubt, her favorite kind of hope, one last piece of consistency in a world that kept tearing itself apart until it would someday decide to take everyone and everything with it.</p><p>She turned around, sliding the curtain in front of the outer edge of the window aside by an inch with a soft curl of her index finger into the light fabric, creating a small gap between it and the window frame to reveal him parking next to her black Cadillac in a single, practiced turn to the right. He did not like driving in the city, but he was good at it anyway, in the way in which he was good at so many things in life that she could barely begin to fathom. Looking at the familiarity in the picture of him coming home to her, something that had once been a simple everyday occurrence, almost a banality to both of them, it hurt a little less tonight. Or at least that was what she told herself.</p><p>It was easier this way, ignoring the pain until she felt numb, choosing to be a fool by fooling herself.</p><p>She opened the curtain a little wider, just a little, cautious as to not attract his attention with her need to watch him while he cut off the engine and stayed seated in the dark until the bright, red digits on the display of his car radio would switch to 11:29 pm, to avoid her knowing that he’d left early, fearing that the city traffic that had always had a mind of its own would cause him to be late, to avoid her knowing that he would rather spend the amount of time that had yet to pass feeling ridiculous in the cold silence of his truck than risk being late, to be able to live out every last second of their messed up little arrangement in carefully feigned casualty. To try and leave her in the dark of all his false hope that caused him to read so much more into this than he was supposed to, as if she was not aware of it all, no matter how hard he tried to keep it from her.</p><p>It was almost like the beginning of a relationship, she thought to herself, a trace of bitterness in the idea that she did not care to allow to cross her mind and stomp down the illusion and destroy it just yet. The awkwardness, the emphasized punctuality, the nervousness, the need to try and make every last detail of a single night perfect, just in case it would be crucial for when it would come to the eventual choice of either letting this continue on, or closing the matter once and for all, to make this special just in case they would never see each other again after tonight.</p><p>It was almost like the beginning of a relationship, hadn’t it been the end.</p><p>For a split second, she lost herself again in thoughts that she did not want to think, and the motion of his opening car door was what eventually let her snap out of them, like a strange form of relief from pain found in the one that had caused the pain in the first place, like someone who was applying CPR on the person they had shot just a moment prior.</p><p>She let the curtains fall back into place and turned to rush through the room to check her appearance in the mirror on her dressing table for the umpteenth time in the past thirty minutes. Something about him always used to suddenly make her usually so confident self turn drastically more self-conscious regarding matters like her looks or her intellect, her dignity and level-headedness, things she normally did not dare to question about herself, similar to back when he had not gained her trust yet. It was no different, now that she was trying to convince herself that he’d lost the privilege again because that was just the better version of the truth, a preferable one. One that should have been the reality.</p><p>The dimmed light in the room from the lamp on her nightstand was flattering and graciously forgiving about the years and years of life and all of its ups and downs that had naturally begun to leave their marks in some areas on her skin. But she had looked at her own face in the presence of less favorable lighting often enough to know where the drawback could be found. It just normally did not bother her as much.</p><p>She ran her fingers through the front bits of her blonde hair again to try and let them fall a little more elegantly around her face, but it did not do any good, at least not enough to please her or even begin to take the edge off.</p><p>The sound of the doorknob being twisted cautiously in the lock echoed softly through the silent house the second the clock stroke half past eleven, and she could not help but smile to herself as she glanced at her wristwatch and saw the second hand wandering from the engraved roman numeral twelve over to number one in snatchy movements that followed the even pace of the watches’ soft ticking noises.</p><p>She looked up again, straightened her dress a little, even though it was not necessary and certainly did not make a difference, before she turned back around to sit on the couch in the corner of the room, hastily grabbing her glass and the random Tolstoy novel from the side table on her way and placing the book openly in her lap as she crossed her ankles on the other end of the cushions, like a parody of someone who was trying to act natural.</p><p>“Diane?”, she heard his voice rising through the quiet, and her lips curled up against the halfmoon-shaped lipstick stain on the rim of her wine glass. To an outsider it could have seemed like they were just a normal married couple, meeting at home after a long day full of work and troubles and temporary separation that every couple had to go through on a daily basis if the spouses were trying to combine their separate lives and turn them into one in ways that had once radically shaped their lives too, ways whose memories set a strange ache through her chest, a longing for what had been consumed by the present to stay stuck in the past.</p><p>“Bedroom.”, she answered after she’d swallowed the soothing bitterness of dry red wine that was inflaming the blood in her veins as she listened to his footsteps coming closer. He was still wearing his boots, she could hear firm heels meeting the hardwood floor of her new apartment, a space they had never shared, a space where he was undoubtedly nothing more than a guest. No traces of him in the décor, no shared memories apart from him parking his truck in the driveway and coming in to share a couple of hours of heated silence with her; nothing that brought them any closer to some kind of a solution they were, in all ignorance, in desperate need of.</p><p>Her eyes stayed on the random page of the book in her lap for another moment when she heard him coming to a halt in the doorway, relishing in the knowledge of his eyes on her as she blindly stretched her index finger away from the slim stem of her wine glass to wordlessly ask him to wait for her to finish a paragraph that she had never actually begun to read. Another moment of resisting the urge to let her eyes wander over his appearance, while telling herself against all need and craving that she had gotten over the feeling within the past couple of months, that she had gotten over <em>him</em> during the succession of all of their mistakes, as if that had ever been the case.</p><p>Ever since the moment he had first stepped into her old corner office almost a decade ago, all chances of ever getting over this man had been doomed. And looking back now, maybe that was what they had secretly been all along; doomed, right from the very beginning.</p><p>But she did not have to acknowledge that. It was easier to live off make-belief for someone who was as starved in the need of not getting disappointed again as her.</p><p>She closed the book, put it and the glass back on the side table and untangled her legs to get up and meet his gaze.</p><p>“Hey.”, she said, her voice oddly throaty in all attempted casualty.</p><p>“Hey.”, he answered, casting her a smile as he left the doorway to approach her. He was not wearing a jacket, but judging from the winter frost outside, not even he would have been as headless as to forego putting one on before leaving the comfortably heated air temperature of his hotel room she knew would be too cold for her liking.</p><p>It must have been hot for him in here beneath the cotton of his flannel shirt. They had always differed on many levels, crashed regularly because of opposing directions they each deemed to be the only possible options, and room temperature had frequently been a contentious issue between them. She had not thought about lowering the heat to their old compromise of meeting just a little bit above their middle ground tonight, an agreement in her favor to which she had persuaded him with lawyering and maybe a couple of less conventional methods, back when they had still fought out and dealt with their conflicts together.</p><p>She had forgotten to do it when she had come home earlier that night. But maybe she had to take it as a good sign. Maybe it was a step into the right direction for them, a step further into finally parting their ways, a process too painful to deserve taking up this much time.</p><p>It was nice to think about his brown leather jacket hanging on the rack near the front door, next to a small sample of coats and jackets she was wearing regularly at the moment. It was nice to think about him having needed to take a second to find an unused hook on the rack between the occupied ones that were drowning in what, in his mind, would seem to be a ridiculous amount of clothing to own. It was nice in the way in which this certain kind of melancholic nostalgia could occasionally serve as a pleasant reminder of happiness that had long been overcome.</p><p>He came to a halt in front of her, close enough for his scent to mingle with the air she was breathing, filling her lungs with the warm, soothing essence of harsh wood and raging fire, of soft dreams and light happiness and of smoky gunpowder she knew she would find on his skin in a simple matter of time, like a foreshadow of what to expect. His tall frame dwarfed her in the comfort of her home where she had long discarded her silver high heels to walk around soundlessly with nylon clad feet, and where he was leaving his shoes on until she would give him a reason to take them off. She had always liked that he was taller than her. It had always been easy for him to let her relish in her own femininity, something she tried hard to uphold for herself with the right amount of styling and a bit of an attitude, especially when it came to her job. He had always so easily made her feel safe, even though it had taken a long time for her to accept it, not to mention letting him know.</p><p>His eyes, the reason why she had suddenly started to grow fond of the color green this late in her life, were wandering over her face until they settled on hers, like they were long lost lovers, two protagonists in a movie he would hate, seeing each other for the first time after decades filled with lonesome helplessness and sorrow, years of hopeless searches for a meaning, of unanswered questions that would suddenly turn into closed matters at the first shared gaze in the present during the last five minutes of the film, as though love were a universal answer, a remedy to every kind of pain, the only ingredient needed to form happiness and stability, before the credits would start to unroll to some cheesy, old tune, newly interpreted by some current popstar whose name he would not recognize on the screen in a million years.</p><p>His hand rose slowly, his fingertips losing themselves in soft strokes through her hair, before they moved on to brush over her cheek, and he was looking at her with such affection, with an expression of pure, uncoated and utter love, that it made her swallow in a sudden wave of momentary discomfort.</p><p>She was just about to say something pointless to break herself free off the moment, like asking him how his day had been or if he wanted something to drink, but before she could, his gaze suddenly lingered behind her, the movement of his fingers stilling before his arm dropped back to his side and he snorted amusedly, his grin meeting her frown.</p><p>“War and Peace? Again?”, he asked, and she quickly looked over her shoulder to the side table and then back at him, a small smirk of easement and familiarity parting her lips.</p><p>Shrugging, she chuckled. “Yeah, you know… The old reliable.”</p><p>Sometimes she caught herself wondering if he found her to be predictable, even though the answer she would never find would not even manage to make a difference anymore. And still, she wondered if after all these years, the intimacy between them might have turned into something too dull, too boring for his liking, wondered what else could possibly lead someone to grow so tired of another person’s trust, of comfort, understanding and love that they would decide to throw them away.</p><p>“Sure. <em>Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women</em>.”</p><p>She blinked at him a couple of times. Nine years, and he still managed to surprise her. No matter what the answer to her unvoiced question was, she knew that <em>she</em> would never think of him as predictable. “When did <em>you</em> start reading Tolstoy?”</p><p>“After you first mentioned your weakness for men who can quote him.”</p><p>Her parted, dark pink lips closed. She remembered, of course she did, the days prior to their separation etched in her brain like the moment that had caused it itself from having recited them on too many occasions to try and find a sign, a clue, something meaningful she could have missed at the time. But those moments never left her with the small satisfaction of an explanation.</p><p>“Sorry, I— “, he began, his tone bashful, but she cut him off before he could finish voicing the thought.</p><p>“No. Let’s not go there.”</p><p>He nodded, silent for a moment in which he seemingly regained control over his expression, over his thoughts, and she envied him for it. For being able to really put certain matters aside for the time being and just stop caring for a while, because she never seemed to be able to fully rid herself of them, no matter how hard she tried or how good she had become in playing pretend. His eyes lightened up again and he smiled, his lips curling up beneath his moustache as if it were nothing, taking every inch of skin on his face with it to form a warm expression. It was one of her favorite looks to see on his face, the knowledge of that not just anyone got to see him like this warming her chest.</p><p>“So… Think you can kiss me here?”, he asked, a lopsided smirk on his lips. A sight that she remembered all too well, because nothing either of them could have done would ever be enough to make her forget about what had once been. The love, the trust she had once allowed him to receive from her, like a gift that she had never thought she’d ever be willing nor able to give to anyone, until he had begun to jump in and out of her life, proving her wrong every single time he came back, regardless of all the sacrifices she had to make to give it out. They were sacrifices she had wanted to make for him, for the happiness they had given to each other—or at least the one he had given her. He could not have been as happy as she’d thought, or maybe naively hoped, considering his actions that had ended up terminating the little amount of stability they had been trying to work out for more than seven years.</p><p>People didn’t throw away happiness like he had thrown away everything they had had, whatever that might have been in the end. She only knew what it had been for her and how much they had meant to her, and she would never dare ask him now, would never dare to risk having him know how much it had hurt her, how badly destroyed he had left her when she’d found out that he couldn’t have shared her view against all opposing belief their years together had stabilized within her, only to be shattered within the matter of a single day, a single minute, one second of realization that still had her trying to pick up the pieces and put them back together to this day.</p><p>She felt too numb to think about it and the thought was not worth wasting yet another night alongside all the prior ones it had already managed to take with it, more than she could count or was willing to remember, as her retrospective doubts in their marriage had evolved to become some kind of masochistic habit, almost like a self-destructive hobby over the cause of the last two and a half years.</p><p>Her lips mirrored his, twitching aside naturally at the sight of his smile. “Try me.”, she said challengingly, before she rose on her tiptoes, leaning in to meet his lips tongue first.</p><p>His arms wrapped around her as her eyes fell closed at the first touch. It was hasty and urgent in the longing that had been building up inside her ever since his last visit. It could not be compared to the one she had felt in the past when they had not seen each other for a while because he had been away for work or because she had been working on a tough case that had required her spending fourteen hours a day at the office for several weeks in a row. It was different, because back then, there had always been a tomorrow in sight to look forward to, in case today would not work out. There had always been more time, and right now, they only had tonight, no certain outlook regarding the future, only certainty towards one another, right here and right now, in this room, in this instance; tonight.</p><p>A small whimper of discomfort escaped her into him, and he hummed questioningly, trapped between needing to remain where they were, tightly embraced in the staged lie of a feigned union, and having to know that she was okay. She broke their kiss, opening her eyes to find a dark gaze casting shadows over his flushed skin in the dimmed light that made him look tired and older than he usually did, without managing to hide any trace of how handsome he was.</p><p>She cast him a smile and reached for her reading glasses, taking them off and breaking their eye contact to toss them on the couch behind her.</p><p>“Sorry, they were in my way.”, she mumbled sheepishly when she turned back to him to find his smile.</p><p>He almost looked relieved, but she could not figure out what possible reason he could have for that, nor did she want to plague herself with the burden of having to think about it right now.</p><p>“Can’t have that.”, he smirked, his arms tightening around her frame again as if to pull her up into him before he dipped his head to kiss her.</p><p>Her hands rose into the small space between their chests, blindly finding the buttons on his flannel shirt to fumble with them until they gave in and opened, starting at his collar and clumsily wandering down as he kicked off his shoes because she’d given him a reason to do so. Her fingers slipped into the fabric, forcing him to let go of her for a mere matter of seconds to let her brush it off his arms, the lock of their lips, the waltz of their tongues meanwhile reassuring him that she would not break their touch before he would get the chance to hold her again.</p><p>No one apart from him had ever held her like this, she thought when his bare arms slung back around her and pulled her close to him, his hold so tight that the sparkly fabric of her shimmering dress must have scratched his skin, but he did not seem to care in the slightest. No one apart from him had ever undressed her like this, his fingers smoothly unzipping her tight dress, palms roaming over her bare back, celebrating the newly uncovered skin as if this were the first time he touched it after years of dreaming about it, as he pushed the fabric off her to get it out of his way and let it pool around her feet.</p><p>Panting, she broke their kiss, her eyes finding his for a split second to cast him a wicked smile, before her hands landed on his chest and she pushed him on the bed behind him. She moved to straddle him, took his face between her hands, captured his beauty within her touch as if she were able to keep it for herself that way, like everyone selfishly wanted to select the beauty out of this world to make it their own to an extent, before she kissed him again, her lips like an addict, craving the taste of their counterpart. It was careful, almost cautious, reminding both of them of that they had learned from the one time their teeth had hit dangerously hard in an occasion similar to this one, that had taken place less than three years ago and still felt like a lifetime away from them.</p><p>Everything had changed since then. It seemed like nothing had been stable enough to defeat the delicate fragility, the cruel ruthlessness of time. Everything had changed.</p><p>And yet, they were here; together.</p><p>He let her lead the kiss, his lips, his tongue moving on her and her accord only, as his hands gently wandered along her sides, feeling the curve of her waist in the movement and settling on her hips, his thumbs pressing into her nylon covered hip bones when she lazily began to bump into his. Her golden hair was tickling his cheeks, it was longer compared to the last time it had felt this careless, this intimate between them, and when he had seen her in the morning, he’d been wondering if she had decided to keep letting it grow out. But he would never ask, because it was her place and certainly not his, and while the thought had passed his mind like every last little thing that concerned her, it wouldn’t make a difference. She always looked perfect, no matter what haircut she wore, no matter what color was gracing her lips, or what fabric was hugging her curves. She was always beautiful. She was always perfect, seemingly a little more even with every time he saw her, because his memories could never do the reality that was her any justice.</p><p>The movements of her hips above his came to a halt in the warm air in the room, her cool fingers leaving his cheeks to wander down a steady path on his bare chest, aiming down towards his belt, when they suddenly got captured between his, stilling just above his heart. He almost threw off her balance when she leaned up and shot him a questioning look, one of her brows arching up, her front teeth sinking into her swollen bottom lip. The front parts of her hair where hanging into her face, but she did not have it in her heart to leave his touch to push them back. Not when he was looking at her like this. Not when his long fingers fitted hers this perfectly.</p><p>“What’s wrong?”, she breathed out, her voice husky as she suppressed releasing her breath in soft panting to soothe the strain on her lungs from kissing him.</p><p>He shook his head, his thumbs brushing along her knuckles as one of his brows furrowed. “Are you cold?”, he asked, his low voice soft and caring like only his could ever be.</p><p>She shook her head. “No. Why?”</p><p>“Your hands…” He brought them to his lips, still captured in his, and blew a little warm air on them, tugging one corner of her lips aside in a sweet half-smile.</p><p>It was as if her skin was being called back into life with his breath as he warmed it in his. It was as if it had long been starving for his touch to wake it up again from a seemingly endless slumber of nothingness, now that it had been traded for everything that was good and pure in this world again.</p><p>“You know they’re always cold.”, she remarked, no longer able to hold back the small chuckle that escaped her now, no longer able to suppress the warmth rushing through her chest, spreading happiness in her heart that almost felt like a foreign feeling at this point. Like a long-lost lover.</p><p>He lowered their hands, let go of her and smiled. “Yeah. I know.”, he mumbled quietly, seemingly speaking to himself rather than to her, as though he were ashamed of caring.</p><p>She shook her head, huffing out a breath of amusement, before she dipped her head to lock their lips again, her hands, warmer now than they had been before, finding their way down to the bright piece of metal in the shape of an eagle to undo his belt in a movement as practiced as kissing him, as practiced as the reflex of breathing itself.</p><p>Her tongue trailed along the inside of his bottom lip, as her fingers unzipped his jeans, but before she could let them sneak inside to cup him through the cotton fabric of his boxers, his hands were on her waist again, his grip a little firmer this time, strong enough to be able to spin them around in a swift motion.</p><p>Their lips parted and her eyes shot open to meet darkened green that never left her gaze while he pushed down his pants and tossed them on the floor behind him. She would never tire of watching him, she knew that for sure. No piece of art or literature would ever be as fascinating as the way he moved, the way he looked, the way he lived. Nothing would ever be as fulfilling as watching him.</p><p>A small gasp escaped her through parted lips, her fingers naturally burying themselves in the thick strands of his hair until her fingertips could run across his scalp, when his eyes left hers and she felt the contrast of his warm tongue and rough, black lace on her left nipple, as his wet flesh roamed along the small bud in circling movements that took her breath away, the feeling mirrored on its counterpart with quick flicks of the tip of his thumb.</p><p>A soft bite into her hardened nipple made her moan breathily, and his head rose to cast her a longing gaze. But she was here, right here with him, shooting him an open-lipped smile, and so he pushed himself up and let his fingers wander down to her pantyhose. His nails scraped across the waistband before his fingertips slipped in between the skimpy fabric and her soft, heated skin, to pull the fabric off her and uncover pale, long legs that he loved so much.</p><p>One of his hands hooked beneath the hollow of her knee and he lowered his head to shower the sensitive inside of her thigh with kisses, celebrating her body as if it were sacred, as if it were giving him hope by being honored with his touch.</p><p>His moustache was scratchy against her skin, the contrast between the pricking of his stubbly hair and the soothing wetness of his lips like a switch to turn off her mind and leave her only with feelings of affection and love for the man who caused them.</p><p>“Kurt.”, she sighed, when his lips came to a halt beneath the lacy rim of her panties. He groaned into her skin in answer, his face close enough to where she wanted him to be to let him smell the sweet scent of her arousal soaking the dark lace that was parting them and causing him to twitch against the restrain of his boxers.</p><p>He had missed this, missed hearing his name dropping from her lips, like it was the one way it was supposed to be pronounced, missed the thundering ache in his crotch that she caused him so easily, the strain he felt in answer from trying to hold back for her sake with every fiber of his body as touching her challenged him the same way her intellect always had, missed her scent in the air he was breathing, when every inhale would carry him further into a meaningful state of insanity and a simple look into her bright blue eyes would guide him back to utter clarity. As though every other color lost its meaning at a single glance, as if every answer to any of his unanswered questions could be found in the one shade of blue he adored the most.</p><p>His thumb began to brush over the outside of her knee on its own accord, while his other hand trailed along the waistband of her panties, before, with a flick of his wrist, the back of his fingers roamed across wet lace.</p><p>The groan that escaped him mingled in his ears with the soft moan she released at his faint touch. She was wetter than he had anticipated, and the thin layer of lace was barely enough to hide it from him while he cursed himself internally for not being able to control himself and having ended up disrupting the sound she had made.</p><p>He swallowed hard; she could see the movement of his Adam’s apple even in the darkness of the night. Then he tilted his head, pressed his lips into the inside of her knee, his breathing spilling warmly against her kneecap through his nose, as he began to push the heel of his hand into her clit.</p><p>The movement strained the sharp lace on her heat, teased her clit, enhanced his pressure in a way that was almost too much at once. Her eyes rolled back into her head, her wish to keep looking at him giving in beneath painful pleasure that ran from her core into her veins to spread widely through her body, as if his touch were setting her blood on fire. The back of her head sank further into the silk sheets beneath her, parted lips releasing a deep, breathy groan. He exhaled lowly in answer, the air was pushed out of his lungs and against her skin a little more firmly, a little more audible than prior.</p><p>She forced her eyes open when she felt his lips leaving her skin, met dark green eyes and an expression in them that she could not name. She had expected to find a sly smirk, a mocking grin beneath his moustache, but his lips remained motionless. His eyes were almost piercing, his look almost questioning when he slowly lowered her thigh, lay it on the mattress and let his fingertips crawl gently over her skin, slowing the circling movements of the ball of his palm against her clit until his hand merely brushed over the dripping lace anymore.</p><p>Slowly, she pushed herself up on both elbows, trying to catch a gaze that seemed to be both, lying on her, and miles away from her at the very same time.</p><p>“Kurt?”, she whispered, one of her hands rising as she reached out to cup his cheek.</p><p>He blinked at her, met her furrowed brows and his tensed facial features softened as he granted her a small smile. “Sorry. I was just…”, he mumbled, his gaze dropping, his fingers leaving her thigh to scratch a patch of skin behind his ear, an old, nervous habit of his that she knew all too well.</p><p>Sitting up, she gently took his hand in hers to stop his movements and let their embraced fingers come to rest in her lap, offering him an encouraging smile. “You were what?”</p><p>He shook his head, an awkward chuckle escaping him before he met her gaze again. “I was just thinking how beautiful you are.”</p><p>His courage had always been fascinating to her. He was not a good talker, they both knew that without a doubt, but she knew that whenever he did speak, he spoke in honesty. They always seemed to come so lightly, so easily to him, the words of truth he would allow her to hear, and she could only ever think that she could hardly imagine to take on the courage, the bravery it had to take to reveal one’s deepest thoughts and feelings to someone else.</p><p>She never knew how he managed to come up with it, but knowing it was not necessary to feel her heartbeat pulsating violently against her ribcage in answer to his words, to feel her cheeks flush hot and pink in the forgiving darkness of the hour.</p><p>It was one of the things she had never managed to wrap her head around when it came to him. His unconditional honesty. The endless amount of value he placed upon sincerity.</p><p>It was one of the first things that had fascinated her about him. It was one of the things she had always loved the most about him.</p><p>Her lips parted, the gap between them lingering around silence, as if her body had expected her to come up with an answer that she could not find, not when his gaze was lying on her as it did, fully and all consuming, his picture of her seemingly a mocking betrayal to reality, like his idea of her was something that differed from the truth he valued so much. As if in his mind, he was undeserving of her love while she deserved his, which was just about the most massive contradiction she could have thought of.</p><p>She moved, her legs slinging around his hips, hard cotton meeting damp lace as she leaned forward and closed her eyes to try and rid herself of the tightness in her throat, the feeling that seemed to be putting a strain upon her lungs to hinder her breathing, they were washed away as soon as her lips, softly and innocently, brushed against his. The smallest movement, the faintest touch, in his presence they were enough to guide her out of reality again and into a better place, a state of mind in which she could get lost with him without having to think about a way back to the path, no thoughts wasted on yesterday, nor tomorrow. A place reserved for them in the present and the present only.</p><p>His hand left hers and he slung his arms around her frame to pull her closer as she deepened the kiss, the tip of her tongue darting out, passing his lips and touching his like it were on a dare, like she were afraid of getting it burned if she dared to kiss him a little more mindlessly, just a little more uncontrolled.</p><p>And when her breathing spilled a bit more roughly against his cheek in answer to him deepening their embrace, when her arms wrapped around his neck like he was the one she would allow to try and catch her in the fall, his heart fluttered against her heaving chest. Being intimate with her had always centered around the matter of control, she had always had that longing in her movements, in her voice, to try and give it up, while simultaneously having to overcome the fear that accompanied the feeling, as though the two were tied together to keep her trapped in their ambiguity forever. He knew it scared her, it had back then, when they had just met each other, and it certainly did so now, now that he had broken her trust and fed her doubts.</p><p>But she kissed him differently tonight, fuller and deeper as he began to initiate the fire again, opened up to him in the way their tongues embraced, their lips touched. She kissed him like she hadn’t kissed him for a very long time, kissed him like she had kissed him before.</p><p>He did not suppress it and he never could, the hope that always defeated his rationality without much of a fight whenever he found the traces of old, long-missed familiarity between them, whenever she touched him, whenever she looked at him with a gaze that did not wash him in the toxicity of his own guilt. Whenever it felt normal and natural between them, he could not swallow the feeling of hope like he could when they were parted. He couldn’t and he did not care to either, loved her so much that the idea of being rejected could not outsmart the feeling that he had to take the chance as long as she would allow, as far as she would let him, whether she would draw the line after tonight or never. It was the risk he had to take, the pride he had to swallow in order to try. And trying, it was all that he could do and everything he had to do, because she was too important to pass on the chance and important enough to take the risk.</p><p>A deep breath, close to a sigh but too muffled against his lips to really count as one, escaped her when his hands roamed from her back to her front, sneaking in between their bodies to cup her breasts through skimpy, black lace. Rough thumbs colliding with the fabric to tease her hard nipples, his palms pushing against them from below to feel them not quite filling out his large hands, the move was possessive and caring, full of love and everything she wanted.</p><p>Their lips parted and she arched her back, throwing her head back as his lips jumped down to her throat, colliding with a weak spot only he was aware of, a weak spot only he was allowed to love and cherish.</p><p>Her eyes rolled back into her head as he nibbled on her skin, her breath catching in her throat as his hands tightened and softened around her breasts in a play between teasing and caressing. One of her hands found his hair, the golden band on her ring finger that she had never had the strength to finally take off, catching his hair near his scalp.</p><p>“Sorry.”, she gasped, his tongue darting out against her sensitive skin to make her moan softly as she blindly untangled his hair from its accidental embrace with the ring he had put on her finger years and years ago.</p><p>“Mm mm.”, he hummed. His right hand left her breast with one last squeeze, then roamed down across her abdomen until they found her damp underwear to toy with it and tease her heat lightly with his fingertips.</p><p>“Ah!”, she moaned desperately, her hips bucking into the unsatisfying taste of a touch. She knew that if she had the strength to open her eyes and look at him, he would smile at her with that wicked glint in his eyes, where mischief would mingle with adoration, a look that would both frustrate and annoy her, but first and foremost make her heart skip a beat.</p><p>With her free hand, she reached behind her and unclasped her bra, the tight, flimsy lace subsiding in his palm, a move that caused him to groan.</p><p>She let go of his hair, let him shrug the unwanted fabric off her shoulders and onto the floor with a short flick of his wrist, opened her eyes when his lips left the curve between her throat and collar bone, catching his dark gaze as it roamed over her body to settle on the piercing blue of her eyes.</p><p>For a moment, neither one of them said anything, touches to fill the silence coming to a halt. And there was only heavy breathing, close enough to warm each other as it emerged through parted lips, only a gaze that could have brought the world to collapse beneath them.</p><p><em>I love you</em>, he thought, as her tongue darted out to wet her lips in a subconscious movement.</p><p><em>I love you too</em>, she thought, as she gazed into his dark green eyes lighting up when his lips twitched aside, and she chose to smile back at him.</p><p>He loved her. And she loved him. And tonight, she chose to let herself love him.</p><p>He took her left hand in his, turned it to undo the slim, black leather band of her wristwatch and guide her bare wrist to his lips for a soft kiss against her pulse point before he let it go. His hands slung around her neck, his eyes on hers as he undid the small, dainty chain of her heavy pearl necklace, as if to rid her of the weight of a long working day full of being Ms. Lockhart, to let her come home and make her Diane. <em>Di</em>.</p><p>He pressed his lips against her cheek before he reached behind him to place watch and pearls on her nightstand, before he faced her again to suddenly let his eyes fall shut as she kissed him tongue first. Her hands landed on his shoulders, his fingers grasping her hips before he let her spin them around so he could control her fall before she landed on the silk sheets beneath him.</p><p>His mouth collided with hers, short and deliciously hasty, pulling a moan from her when his fingers roamed over wet lace again, making her spread thighs twitch beneath him before he sat up and hooked his thumbs into the fabric to pull it off her legs in a teasingly slow movement.</p><p>He shrugged off his boxers and looked at her, lying in front of him, so bare and vulnerable that it usually would make her squirm in discomfort. But not tonight. And never with him.</p><p>Her leg curled around his back, his hard, tense erection pressing into her thigh, so dangerously close to where she was craving him to be. She grasped him, pumping him as lazily as his tongue was curling into her mouth, as gently as his hand was roaming along her body, from the curve of her thigh on his back, along her hipbone and further up to tease her breast.</p><p>She sighed into his lips, curling her thumb across his tip and letting it roam over his slit until a deep, almost primal groan escaped him from deep within his throat into her mouth.</p><p>He broke their kiss, pushed himself up, his hand pressing into the mattress next to her tousled, blonde hair, his other hand curling around her wrist to let her let him go, before his hand replaced hers and guided his hard length into her.</p><p>Their eyes were locked and she knew he had broken their kiss because he wanted to watch her as her lips parted in a silent gasp and the wrinkles around her eyes cringed together while she attempted to let her eyes stay open to see him.</p><p>His hand settled on her thigh, keeping her leg steady around him as he entered her fully, his grunt mingling with her breathless moan in the hot air around them.</p><p>His thrusts were slow, slower than usual. Something was different tonight and she could not grasp what it was, only knew that she liked it. It made her forget. It made her feel loved.</p><p>She had not felt like herself lately, and she did not know anymore which one of the countless reasons she could think of had caused it eventually. But tonight, she felt like she could see clearly for the first time in months, tonight when she looked into his eyes as if they were the light in the literal darkness of the night. It was as if his touch was taking her back to herself, to a person she had been missing for a very long time now, as if he were taking her hand and guiding her to a mirror to show her that she had been there all along, that she had simply lost her perspective for a period of time, telling her that it was okay to feel like this every now and then, telling her that it was okay to be human until she would believe him, no matter how long it would take or how much effort he would have to make.</p><p>She pushed her hips up and into his and he ground his pelvis into her clit, gentle and passionate at the very same time, and caused her eyes to fall closed, a deep moan escaping her. The muscles in her abdomen twitched as he quickened the pace of his thrusts, her walls clenching around him in delight when he dipped his head and kissed her, muffling a dark groan against her tongue as if he were lending the sound to her for as long as she wanted to hold onto it, onto a piece of him that she never wanted to lose again.</p><p>His fingers left her tense thigh, snuck in between their bodies to settle above from where they were joined, his palm, his long digits splayed out across her pelvis, as the edge of his thumb dug into her clit in a long stroke, his rough skin easily sliding along her slick flesh.</p><p>A high shriek escaped her into him and her fingernails sank into his shoulder blades, clinging to him as he carried her closer towards the edge, his strong arms wrapped around her so she would never fall, his broad frame assuring her that he would never let her go.</p><p>No one apart from him had ever loved her like this, fully and senseless, unconditionally and pure. She could taste it on his tongue, the unspoken words he would have said to her, hadn’t he known better than to dare pressure her with them, and so he kept the burden to himself. She could feel it in his touch, his fingertips gliding over her skin to engrave it with countless invisible love letters of things he could never actually say, his confidence strong enough to tell her anyway.</p><p>His honesty did not leave any room for an attempt to hide it from her, the silent confessions of love in every gaze that were enough to make her lungs ache for air, to make her heart flutter so violently in her chest that it almost hurt. He had never cared to hide his feelings for her, and she never wanted him to start because she needed the one constant, the one thing she could always trust and that she could believe in, to stay with her forever.</p><p>She had been missing this, had been craving the feeling of his body against hers, of his tongue curling into hers, his warmth, his presence so close to her that it made her feel like she was about to burst. It reminded her why she had pushed Tully away, earlier today at the courthouse.</p><p>It was not the same, and it would never be.</p><p>Because he was not Kurt. And that would always stand in her way when it came to any other man. He was the second choice, merely a rebound that only served as a halfway good distraction because it was so easy. And it <em>was</em> easy, while there was nothing easy about whatever it was that she had with <em>him</em>. It had never been easy between them. And easy would never be enough.</p><p>Her teeth captured his bottom lip until they released it in a sudden movement, their lips parted by half an inch as her left brow arched up and the air was pushed out of her lungs in a loud shriek, her thighs twitching, her leg slipping off his back as she attempted to widen them further and get more, more of him, more to feel, more to hold on to.</p><p>“Diane.”, he groaned, his thumb rubbing furiously faster over her clit, his fingertips digging roughly into her lower abdomen, his hips plunging into her harder and faster as she shook beneath him.</p><p>Her ragged breath escaped her in deep, throaty moans, sounding into his ear as his stubbly cheek collided with the soft, smooth skin of hers. A shaky hand found his hair, curling into it to touch his warm scalp, the other one still clinging to his shoulder blade, surely about to leave marks on his skin from the sharpness of the edges of her manicured nails.</p><p>Her eyes fell shut to the song of his deep grunts, the only lyrics he could sing on key, as she attempted to come off her high while he experienced his, but was hindered to do so by his ongoing movements that sent rough contractions through the muscles in her abdomen.</p><p>His thumb was still running across her swollen clit in soft, slowing strokes, her thighs twitching with every move of his, her walls clenching uncontrollably as he came and coated them in a new, familiar layer of wetness.</p><p>Shakily, her hand left his upper back and pressed in between their bodies, their skins slick from the coat of mingled sweat on them, until she reached his displayed fingers above her pelvis.</p><p>“Stop.”, she breathed out with another twitch of her body, and his thumb stilled on her, finally allowing her to gasp for air.</p><p>Her heart was thundering against his chest, her eyes blinking in slow, leisurely bats of her lashes as she attempted to regain control over her breathing. She felt him turn his head aside to place a soft kiss on her cheek and she curled her fingertips against his scalp in answer.</p><p>She did not know for how long they laid there together, their heavy breathing the only noise in the apartment. But when he slipped out of her and coaxed one last twitch from her body, made her breath catch in her throat one more time, his hard length had already gone limp.</p><p>He let her lie there as he sat up and reached for her silky bedsheets to first carefully cover her with them before he joined her, his hand finding her waist and she rolled into his embrace, her head coming to rest against his shoulder.</p><p>It was too hot in the room for his liking to lie under the covers, let alone entangled with her warm body. But he knew how easily she got cold, and the sacrifice of having to take the heat was a small one to make if it meant that he would get to have her in his arms.</p><p>Her fingers began to dance over his chest in nonsensical patterns that she had perfected, and she curled her lips against his cheek. His eyes fell shut in the feeling, the corner of his lips twitching aside in what he knew to be limited and momentary happiness, but what he could, right now, in the foolish bliss of her presence, take as a new wave of hope.</p><p>“Kurt?”, she whispered softly, and he did not have it in him to let this moment pass.</p><p>His eyes remained closed. “Yes?”</p><p>“Would you… like to stay?”, she asked timidly, a thick layer of uncertainty lying within her tone.</p><p>He opened his eyes, turned his head to look at her and gave her a smile that did not reach his eyes. “No, it’s okay. I can sleep at the hotel.”</p><p>Her teeth scraped over her bottom lip as she eyed him with a look that he could not place. “Are you staying at the Westin?”</p><p>“Yes.”, he said, a small frown forming in the arch of his brows. “Why?”</p><p>She shook her head. “No reason… It’s just…” She paused, shaking her head again, and shot him a smile as feigned as his prior one. “No, forget it. Good night then, I’ll see you at the office.” With another twitch of her lips that mimicked a grimace, her hand left his chest and she moved to turn away from him.</p><p>But he stopped her, his fingers curving more firmly into her waist to keep her in place as he leaned up and caught her eye. “What’s the matter?”, he asked softly, his frown deepening as one of her brows twitched.</p><p>“It’s just—it’s a twenty-minute drive. And, you know, it’s late, and the roads are a bitch in the cold.”</p><p>“Do you…” He cleared his throat at the raspy sound of his voice. “Do you want me to stay?”, he asked, not expecting to get a real answer from her, but having to try anyway.</p><p>Trying; it was all that he could do at this point.</p><p>Her eyes left his momentarily, her gaze trailing off to the bathroom door behind him, as if she were expecting to find an answer carved into the polished wood. Then she looked at him again, the fear, the vulnerability in the sparkling blue of her eyes taking him off-guard and causing a knot to form in his throat.</p><p>“Yes.”, she whispered, her voice uncharacteristically small and sheepish, as breathless as he would have expected his own voice to be in the tightness of his throat, and he loosened his grasp on her waist, brushed his fingers softly over her skin and leaned in to place his lips against her forehead.</p><p>“Okay.”, he whispered, lay back into the sheets again and smiled to himself when, after a short moment of consideration, he felt her head on his shoulder, her body curving into his again.</p><p>Something was different tonight, and she did not know what it was. She only knew that she liked it, only knew that it felt right. She knew that when her eyes would fall shut tonight and introduce her to sleep, she would be secured in his arms from the dreads of tomorrow, whatever challenges tomorrow might bring to them. And she knew that the uncertainty of the future did not matter, as long as she was being carried into the future in the certainty of his embrace.</p><p>A few minutes of silence had passed when she felt his head tilting above hers and she left her eyes screwed shut, just in case.</p><p>“I love you.”, he whispered into her hair, before he dipped his head to place a kiss on her temple, like he always did before he left. But tonight was different, because tonight he would stay.</p><p>And she remained still and silent, pretending to be fast asleep as she always did, to avoid both, his affection turning into embarrassment, and being forced to come up with an answer.</p><p>He was not asking her to give him one, and she felt like she had, for once, more time to figure it out. He would come back, and she knew it for sure, held on to the knowledge as he held on to her frame.</p><p>After everything that had happened, he still felt like a constant. In a time of her life where all that she once could have grasped just kept on slipping away, she could still trust that he would always come back at some point, no matter how little good it did to either one of them, and even though the loss off him was what had started the ongoing landslide she lived in now.</p><p>But he always came back. And she knew that he was always going to be right there, in her way, to make her feel torn between liking the feeling, the love that stemmed from it, and the fear it caused her.</p><p>And judging by tonight, maybe that was not all too bad.</p><p>Because maybe, just maybe, after all this time, there was still a chance for them to work this out.</p><p>
  <em>We are asleep until we fall in Love!</em>
</p><p>And as she drifted off to sleep, she could not help but think how wide awake she felt.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Day 2, 7 am</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was almost like it had been before when they would separate in the morning.</p><p>Despite last night’s events, part of her had still expected him to be gone by the time her alarm would call her out of sleep—she knew for sure that <em>she</em> definitely would have left him some time in the middle of the night when he would have been fast asleep to spare herself of the unknown and possible awkwardness the next morning might bring in the face of a new day and with it, the possibility of new perspectives, in a desperate attempt to make the action of leaving a little easier. But instead, his hand only left her abdomen the second her eyes fluttered open to reach over her and silence the shrill alarm.</p><p>A deep groan escaped her when her sight was met with the semi-darkness of the early hour and a small smile formed on her lips when she heard his amused snort in answer.</p><p>“Yep.”, he chuckled, rubbing his palm over his eyes before she turned to meet his gaze.</p><p>She wore a lopsided smile on her lips, her eyelids heavy with sleep and smudged mascara crumbs from the day before, her blonde hair messily framing her perfect face. And she looked at him, her eyes locked with his in a way that reminded him that last night had not been a dream, a look in her eyes that told him that his hopes weren’t still there for nothing. There was a reason, there had always been one. And the reason was her.</p><p>Seeing her wake up was a sight he had not been granted for a while now, a bit of normalcy he had been longing for, ever since the day he had lost it. The present rareness of it, of being with her in the simplicity of the dullness of life that had never been true to its word because life would never be dull with her, the beauty of what he had been missing the most were almost too haunting to disrupt this momentary taste of remedy and curation by leaning down to kiss her. But he could not help himself.</p><p>Her hand rose to cup his stubbly cheek when his lips collided with hers, refreshing her taste on them for the time being, for as long as he still could. It was addictive and he had been caught in her spiral for years, never able to shrug it off, no matter how hard he tried, the feeling of her lips and tongue moving in a perfect rhythm to match his and still on her own accord challenging and playful enough to be intriguing and fascinating as she had always been, the verge between understanding and surprising like a high wire she was dancing on with every move, her balance up in the air masterfully perfected as if she had been dedicating all her life to perfect it, while he knew that it was the most effortless and natural kind of perfection anyone could find. It was just who she was.</p><p>There was no way to deny that they had always been good at this, a perfect pair, like the only two fitting pieces in a flawed puzzle, regarding the physical part of their relationship, even when it still had counted as one.</p><p>He did not seem to be able to define what exact label to put on whatever it was that they had right now. But this was him and Diane. And he knew that she was all the label he could possibly need, knew that there was nothing left to question when it came to her.</p><p>His fingertips slowly began to roam across her collar bone and their teeth bumped lightly together in their tongues’ desperate search for each other, the smooth warmth of their wet touch eliciting a groan from deep within his throat.</p><p>And then she pulled away.</p><p>“I have to get ready.”, she breathed out, her brow furrowed, an apologetic gleam in her eyes as she drew her thumb along his cheek.</p><p>The motion of his fingers on her skin came to a halt and he eyed her for a moment of silence. He should have known, shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up too high. This had been far too perfect to be true anyway. And so he nodded, swallowing hard around a knot that was suddenly tightening his throat and exhaled an audible breath, the remainders of a scoff he could not fully hold back.</p><p>“Yeah, sure.”, he mumbled gruffly, his disappointment audible, but there was no reason to lie and try to hide it from her.</p><p>There never was. And he would not dare to lie to her again, especially considering what the one time he had not been honest with her had turned them into.</p><p>He pushed himself up and turned away from her, getting seated near the edge of her bed, his eyes mechanically scanning the wooden floor for his discarded clothes.</p><p>“Kurt?”, the softness of her voice interrupted his thoughts and forced him to face her again. Her eyes, blue and bright, were shimmering in the dark, the warm, understanding look on her face, the affection in the curve of her lips almost causing him to feel bad about the way he had reacted.</p><p>She reached for his hand, warm skin captured between cold palms, right where it belonged, as he eyed her, the silk sheets having slipped from her shoulders to display her light, milky skin, her outside as beautiful as her inside, her voice as perfect as the words it carried out into the world. “I have to be in court at nine, so I really do need to get ready. This is not a brush-off.”, she said, her tone low and sweet, her lips never losing the soft tilt of a reassuring smile.</p><p>There was no reproach, no trace of annoyance to find over the way he had jumped to his own conclusion, no blame for how he had automatically been quick to assume the worst in order to protect himself. She would not hold him accountable for it, knowing that she was the one who had let it come to this, to the shame he felt for loving her in moments when it did not seem all too convenient.</p><p>He had made his mistakes and they would not just magically undo themselves, but she knew very well that she hadn’t been her best self lately either when it came to the way she treated him, indefinite, limited by boundaries that had only been set by her, letting him touch her whenever she was craving to feel loved and pushing him away again out of fear of getting hurt and hurting him in return with the grudge she was still holding against him. No calls or texts for weeks, not a single life-sign when she was not feeling up to it, and having him drop by for several nights in a row when she did, only to give him a silent treatment again when he would dare to mention the subject of reconciliation.</p><p>So no, she really could not blame him. But what she could do was to give him reassurance whenever it was possible. Taking a small step into a direction where they could finally tear down the palpable wall of uncertainty between them, to stop tiptoeing around each other, blinded with pain and guilt, and to maybe try and take this back into something that could stay as surely as she wanted him to.</p><p>His hand shifted in hers, and for a split second, she feared that he would pull away from her touch. But then his thumb began to brush across the back of her hand in soothing motions, as if to soundlessly apologize for behavior that did not need to be apologized or even explained.</p><p>He cast her a smile.</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>…</p><p>She caught herself smiling sweetly when she opened the bedroom door with a quick, almost clumsy movement of her elbow, her fingers busy fumbling with a stubborn earring, and was met by the comforting smell of coffee and eggs.</p><p>The silver chain locked with a soft click as she stepped into the kitchen, her brows arching up when she saw him balancing a frying pan over two plates on the counter, scraping scrambled eggs over golden, buttered toast.</p><p>“Kurt, you didn’t have to— “, she began, before he cut her off without looking up, his eyes on the pan as he placed it back on the stove.</p><p>“I know.”, he said quickly, as if he had already expected some form of protest from her. “But I wanted to.”</p><p>Huffing out a breath of amusement, she watched him draw his eyes to her and freeze in his movements.</p><p>“What?”, she asked almost coyly, a small smirk forming on her lips.</p><p>He shook his head after a quick moment of silence, his eyes leaving her to look at the plates in front of him. “You look good.”, he muttered under his breath, the words almost not audible as he took a plate in each hand to carry them to the kitchen table where two steaming cups of coffee were already waiting for them.</p><p>She blinked at him as he passed her, his frame clad in washed out jeans and an unbuttoned flannel shirt, his feet bare as she had expected them to be. She knew that there would be a pinch of salt and pepper on her buttered toast because she liked it that way, knew that he had put the right amount of low-fat milk in her coffee while his would be black with half a teaspoon of sugar, a fable of his he did not like to admit and she could never begin to understand.</p><p>And so, she sat down beside him before he had the chance to pull her chair out for her, the seat at the head of the table, before he sat down on her left, like always, casting her an arched eyebrow for getting in the way of his good manners. She smirked playfully in answer while she reached for her mug, blew a little cold air on the steaming surface before she took a small sip.</p><p>The warm taste of coffee, just bitter enough to help her wake up and just the right amount of milk to make it comforting, his side gaze on her just cautious enough to be sweet.</p><p>She swallowed, the mouthful of warmth rushing down her throat as she lowered the mug and returned his gaze with a smile.</p><p>“Thank you, Kurt.”, she said.</p><p>It had been a while since she last had had breakfast at home. She remembered it as though it had been yesterday, but she knew that this was just another trick of her mind, the exact occasion too painful to recall and just another reminder of happiness that had already passed.</p><p>Breakfast at home, a routine that had stopped the same day his bare footsteps had stopped walking around her house.</p><p>He shook his head, lowering his head in an almost sheepish manner that did not seem like something he would usually practice. “My pleasure.”, he said more to himself than to her, before he reached out to take a healthy sip of sweetened, black coffee that she would hate, a taste that she only ever loved to taste on his lips.</p><p>And after a moment of silence had passed, she wondered how it was that this setting somehow managed to not be painful, wondered how it was everything but the saddening feeling it was supposed to be.</p><p>Wondered how, after all this time, loving him was not half as scary as she had remembered it to be.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Day 2, 11:14 pm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"Tully, don't make me regret getting you out."</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her eyes left her laptop screen when her cell phone began to buzz. She took a quick glance, denied the call, and turned back to her work.</p><p>She would not meet him again. It was settled, had probably been settled before it had even started, and now that she had done him one last favor by handling bail for him, it was over. It had to be over.</p><p>There was no good to be found in what they had, the past few weeks had proven that her current lifestyle had not been the cleverest choice she could have made. And even though it wasn’t all on him, he was like the embodiment of her recently practiced escapism and she could not shake off that feeling for any longer when it came to it. The irresponsibility she felt when she was with him, the numbness he awoke in her the same way in which the small green vial that had accompanied her for almost the same amount of time that he had, the chosen instability, a fall guided by herself, the most controlled loss of control she had ever experienced, it all met within him, liberating in the simplest of ways.</p><p>She was feeling better these days, closer to what had once been an easy tie to a reality she could bear. The green glass of the vial in her purse was see-through and she surprisingly found herself lacking the need to fill the void again. Life was always complicated, but it was no longer cathartic, it was made of horrors and complications that she could take, pain that she actually wanted to challenge, because she knew that what was waiting on the other side to reward her for her strength was worth it.</p><p>With a quick flick of her manicured fingers, she flipped the cell phone over, the display facing her desk before his name could reappear on the screen.</p><p>It was over.</p><p>It had to be over.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Day 2, 9:48 pm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"Where is Kurt vulnerable?"</p><p>"I don't know."</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the requested chapter. Hope it turned out okay.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her heart was pumping violently, blood rushing quicker through her veins than it probably should have, filling every fiber of her body with rushes of adrenaline, of excitement and a pinch of anxiety beneath the armor of the tight fit of her burgundy jacket.</p><p>Her cool fingertips softly traced along the engraved lines on the cold surface of her silver brooch, a nervous movement, followed on their own accord.</p><p>The ping of the elevator door was almost enough to make her flinch and she caught the look of the young man in a black suit and red tie that stepped out a couple of floors beneath her destination, a quick side gaze that almost seemed to question her presence here.</p><p>And he was right. She should not be here.</p><p>Softly, she cleared her throat as the elevator door closed, regaining a bit of composure as she straightened her back, her chin tilting up just a little in her unconscious attempt to gain the superiority of control over the situation.</p><p>She swallowed against the dull pressure in her ears when the elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open for her to step out. Slowly, her heels quietly tapping against the carpeted hallway, she wandered along the rows of doors to her sides before she stopped abruptly in front of the one that read 525, a simple layer of lacquered wood between her and the space where it had all begun, more than nine years ago.</p><p>She drew in a shaky breath, not having it in her to ponder on why her throat suddenly felt so tight; there were countless possible reasons for it and not a single one that she did not deem ridiculous.</p><p>Her hand rose and she knocked, her fingers flying from the door into her hair to push it back in a nervous attempt to fix her appearance without a mirror in sight.</p><p>And she waited. And waited. Knocked again with a little more pressure this time, but still. Nothing.</p><p>Her brows arched together in a frown as her gaze left the closed door and she began to dig blindly around in her purse to try and fish out her cell phone, the display lighting up the moment her fingers had wrapped around its edges, her frown deepening as she read his name on the screen.</p><p>“Kurt? Where are you?”, she asked, pushing the leather straps of her purse back and securely onto her shoulder.</p><p>“Outside your house.”, he said in a tone that made it seem like he had expected her to be aware of that. She remembered it from when he would use it in discussions or to mock her, remembered the crinkle of his brow that accompanied this particular shade of his voice. “You’re not here?”</p><p>She sighed, her tongue rushing across her bottom lip. “No, I’m at the Westin.”</p><p>“Damn.”</p><p>A faint smile formed on her lips before it quickly faded again, washed away as she reminded herself of why she was here. “We need to talk.”, she said lowly.</p><p>“Yeah, I know.”, he answered, his voice disrupted by the hollow bang of his car door falling shut.</p><p>Her brows shot up. “You do?”</p><p>“Of course. Give me ten minutes.”</p><p>…</p><p>It was a twenty-minute car ride. But true to his words, around ten minutes later she straightened, her back leaving the support of the closed door when the ping of the elevator was followed by footsteps she would have recognized on a crowded train station, their eyes meeting as soon as they were in sight. She felt a bit of tension floating off her shoulders. He had always had the miraculous power to lift it off her, even when she did not want him to.</p><p>“Hey.”, she said softly, stepping away to let him unlock the door. It opened with a soft click before he put the chip card back into the pocket of his leather jacket as he—ever the gentleman—wordlessly let her walk in first.</p><p>She turned as he followed her in, watched as he slid out of his jacket and tossed it over a nearby chair, utterly ignorant of the coatrack on the wall next to the doorframe and she had to keep herself from rolling her eyes. This was the way he was. This was his space. And it wasn’t her place anymore.</p><p>His eyes met her in an almost expectant manner and she knew that he had just caught her staring, though she could not really find true embarrassment within herself even though it would have just about accompanied curtesy he knew she valued so much, had the circumstances been any different.</p><p>“Sit.”, he said with a soft nod of his head, and she feigned a lopsided smile before she shook her head, her fingers digging a little deeper into the black coat that was hanging over her forearm like a shield.</p><p>“I’d rather not.” Her voice was almost a whisper and his brows scooted up, his lips parting as though he had been planning to say something but had decided not to at the last minute.</p><p>He shook his head, approached her to take her coat and she let him hang it up on the coatrack before he turned back to her.</p><p>A warm look graced his eyes as he tilted his head towards the couch. “Come on. You’re making me nervous.”</p><p>He did not seem nervous. In fact, he seemed nothing but as perfectly content and confident as he usually did, but she had not come here tonight to argue about the way his appearance so often seemed to defy his words, and so she followed suit, placing her purse on one end of the couch and sitting down straight, her back arched and not daring to touch the cushion as though she were fearing that it might burn her skin while he paced around the space, fixing them a glass of scotch each, before he handed her one and sat down beside her.</p><p>It was cold in the room. Her hands wrapped around the cool glass as she took her first sip of burning bitterness, feeling his eyes on her like a reminder of why she was craving the liquid confidence in the first place, before she looked up.</p><p>His free arm was resting on the back of the couch, his filled tumbler balanced between his fingers and thigh, his legs crossed loosely in a way that almost made her envy his calmness.</p><p>No. He did not look nervous at all.</p><p>“So…”, he began, casually nipping on his scotch before he continued. “Let’s talk.”</p><p>Diane nodded softly, clearing her throat before she offered him an apologetic smile. “I… This is difficult.”</p><p>“What, talking to me?”, he asked in a small chuckle. She could hear the uncertainty in the sound that he couldn’t hide and maybe he wasn’t so calm after all.</p><p>“No.”, she said determinately, and she meant it. There was no second-guessing needed, because despite all her fear about having to have this conversation with him, despite everything that he—that <em>they</em> had done to each other, and despite all her rotten attempts to push him away and avoid talking to him at all costs, she could not find herself discomforted by it, now that they did.</p><p>It had always been easy to talk to him. And everything could not have changed as much as she’d thought when she would find herself still feeling the same way now.</p><p>She shook her head to emphasize the sincerity of her words, casting him a small but genuine smile that seemed to soften the wrinkles in his features, his eyes holding on to the stern look within them, as if he had learned to handle his hopes with caution these days when it came to her.</p><p>“It’s just… all so complicated.”, she tried.</p><p>She was not used to stumbling over her words anymore. The warm look he cast her whenever she did had always been the best excuse for the way he challenged her, threw her off balance, like he could just feel how far out of her comfort zone she was.</p><p>He tilted his head, his eyes thinning slightly as he looked at her, and she could not identify whether he was trying to analyze her or attempting to silently call her out on being ridiculous and overthinking. Though, with a small amount of consideration, it might have been both.</p><p>“Doesn’t have to be.”, he acknowledged, and a quick, audible breath escaped her throat, the sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff.</p><p>“Hah.” She arched an eyebrow at his forming smirk and took another sip of scotch, holding his gaze as she subconsciously allowed herself to lean into the couch, a little step towards comfort, a little closer to him, her shoulder almost touching his arm. “I think we’re <em>way</em> past that.”</p><p>“I’m not.”</p><p>Scraping her teeth across her bottom lip, one of her hands left the glass in her lap, her elbow coming to rest beside his arm, her knuckles supporting her head from beneath her jaw as she looked him deeply in the eyes, a small part on the back of her mind fearing that she might drown in the green if only she would let herself. “That’s just because you don’t allow for any room for complications. But your ignorance doesn’t actually make them go away.”</p><p>He raised an eyebrow at her, his smirk growing as she waited for a playful response. “So… you think I’m ignorant?”</p><p>She huffed out a small laugh. “No. I think you’re too careless for your own good sometimes.”</p><p>“Thought you liked that about me.” He took another sip of scotch, his arm moving slightly, his fingers barely coming to touch her shoulder. She did not know if he even noticed, but she certainly did.</p><p>“I do. Most of the time.”, she said, scraping the edge of her blood red fingernail against the skin behind her ear before she mirrored his movements and nipped on the bitter sweetness of her scotch. “But that doesn’t make it any less complicated.”</p><p>His eyes squinting, his smirk disappearing to make room for the parting of his lips, his fingers dared to move and brush against the neckline of her jacket. His touch was warm and soft on the skin beneath her neck. It had to be unconscious because it felt too natural to have been thought through.</p><p>“Well… I think you’re complicating things.”</p><p>Smiling, she tried to swallow the knowledge of how his fingers would feel on the rest of her skin, if only he would dare to touch her with a little less caution outside the limit of the small amount that was exposed by her outfit, tried to shake off the thought of how the sweet aftertaste of scotch that was lighting up her throat would taste on his lips, a condition that always made every taste in the world better than it already was on its own.</p><p>“I thought you liked that about me.”, she breathed out, the joke cut short on its delivery in the face of her husky, breathy whisper.</p><p>But he had the curtesy to huff out a breath of amusement, was kind and generous enough to cast her a warm look that cast soft wrinkles around his eyes. Until they disappeared again.</p><p>“Diane.”, he said, his voice suddenly lacking the lightness from prior. “I told you what I think, and I’d say that’s all I can do for my part.”</p><p>She blinked at him, remaining silent for a short while, until she realized that he had lost her. “I don’t think I—”, she began, but was cut off by a voice that was almost too steady for his statement.</p><p>“I’m done with the separation. I asked you to move in together and the offer still stands. I’m leaving the rest to you.”</p><p>There was a tightness in her throat that she did not remember to have been there before. It sent an aching down to her lungs. Her arm shifted, moved until her fingers could curl around his upper arm.</p><p>“Kurt, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”</p><p>His brow furrowed, the movement of his fingers on her skin coming to an abrupt halt.</p><p>“Okay.”, he said slowly. And she hated herself for having to brush him off like this. It <em>was</em> complicated between them and he had done his fair share to cause it, but he did not deserve this. “What is it then?”</p><p>The tip of her tongue slid over her bottom lip and she cleared her throat. “Solomon… He’s trying to undercut your credibility in front of the jury.”, she said softly, her voice low and apologetic and when she looked into his eyes she could see why.</p><p>The faint but clearly visible disappointment, shading the green into something lesser, something that dug into her chest like the sharp blade of a knife. Of course she had come here to talk about business instead of what she had been making him tiptoe around for months, around the conversation she still owed him, no matter how hard she was trying to deny it.</p><p>He shrugged, bringing the glass tumbler back to his lips, if only to have a reason to break the lock of their eyes for a second. “So? Wouldn’t be the first time.”</p><p>Squeezing his arm lightly, she shook her head. “Kurt, this is serious. This is… different.”</p><p>“How?”, he asked, frowning, and reluctantly, she let go of him and turned to get her cell phone out of her purse, opening the article Marissa had emailed her earlier today.</p><p>Her voice was raspy when she read out to him, the words hurting even more than when she had read them in the afternoon, now that she said them out loud. “<em>Ballistics Bro Boinks Buxom Blonde</em>.”</p><p>“What is that?”, he asked, leaning into her to get a look at the display from over her shoulder.</p><p>She tilted her head aside, looking up at him with a look that would hopefully be more confident than she felt. “They’re microtargeting fake news articles to the jury.”</p><p>“About… me.”, he said after a small moment of consideration. It was easier to phrase it like that than to acknowledge the fact that this was about <em>them</em>, which would be the sincerity it needed to raise the old question of what it exactly that would be.</p><p>“Yes. He tried to come after our firm first and it didn’t work, so now he’s going after our strength, the ballistics. The jury liked you.”</p><p>“Yeah, but…” He paused, leaning back as she dropped her phone back in her purse, shaking his head before he continued. “This is personal.”</p><p>“Oh, I know that.”, she reminded him, the implication clear. “But he’s got a reputation to lose and… well, making this about us is an easy way out of a weak case.”</p><p>He looked at her, silent for a moment in which she awkwardly shifted in her position, uncrossing and crossing her legs which did not bring her the comfort she desired.</p><p>“You’re gonna be there? In court?”, he asked, and she shrugged.</p><p>“Of course.”</p><p>He did not argue with her like Adrian had tried earlier today, just nodded despite the query look in his eyes. He knew better than to try and change her mind around a matter she had clearly already settled for herself, stubborn and determined as she had always been.</p><p>Silence fell over them and her gaze sank to the dark golden liquor in her lap, trying to avoid his gaze and taking another quick sip. She swallowed hard, almost choking as the dryness in her mouth mingled with the dark burn of the beverage, the pain in her throat like a mental preparation for what she was about to ask, even though she was not sure if she would like the answer.</p><p>“You haven’t…”, she began raspily, meeting his frown in search for his eyes. She did not know what she had expected but looking at them did not make this any easier. “You haven’t seen her again since… right?”</p><p>“What, Holly? No.” He shook his head, his look dumbfounded, he almost seemed insulted by the fact that she would even have to question that. And the old, well-known feeling of guilt she had started to get used to over time began to spread in her head, making her feel dizzy.</p><p>He had made a mistake. But that was what people did—she out of everyone should be aware of that—, and he did not deserve to be judged solely on its grounds, when she knew that he was so much better than that. A single mistake did not erase the man she had fallen in love with all those years ago, it only took a single look in his eyes to see that he was right there.</p><p>And still…</p><p>Sharply, her teeth captured the flesh of her tongue in her attempt to hold back the tears that were on the verge of flooding her eyes. She held his gaze steady, ignoring her craving to refresh the taste of scotch on her lips, trying to hold it together for just another moment until she would get out of here.</p><p>“You promise?”, she whispered, flinching when his finger gently curled around her free hand, his thumb brushing over her knuckles.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>She nodded softly, her eyes falling shut to release a deep breath she had been holding captive in her lungs, until she gave him a small smile, her voice louder and steadier than she had expected it to be. “Okay. It looks like we might have to put you on the stand again. We’ll prep you in the morning and, uhm… You should be fine.”</p><p>“Alright.”, he said, and she could see the lack of finality in his eyes. His persistence had never come to disappoint, except for him maybe, when in reality all was said and done.</p><p>At least for tonight and at least for her. It was enough.</p><p>“Diane— “, he began, as she’d known he would, and she cut him off, as she knew she had to.</p><p>“I should go.”</p><p>She brought the glass tumbler to her lips without looking at him because she knew that looking at him would get in her way, downed the remainders of scotch and swallowed the strong, burning sweetness as she placed the glass on the coffee table in front of her before her hand slipped out of his and she pushed herself off the couch.</p><p>“Diane, wait.”, she heard him say, took her purse and walked over to the coat rack. But before she could get her hands on it, she felt his touch on her shoulder and stopped, her gaze on the closed door, not daring to turn around and let him see the indecisiveness he’d written all across her features, in the way he had always made leaving even harder than staying.</p><p>Her fingers tightened around the leather straps of her purse, the material sticky beneath the cold sweat on her palms and her front teeth sank into the inside of her cheek to distract herself from the pain in her chest that was threatening to let her eyes fill with tears.</p><p>She had thought that she had gotten over this, wished that she had at least gotten to a point where it would not hurt like this anymore, had expected herself to eventually have reached a point where she would just stop caring anymore. It would always matter and the past would never really vanish, she wasn’t delusional enough to even try to tell herself otherwise, but it was that much that she had expected to manage, if just purely out of self-respect.</p><p>But right now, it hurt exactly like it had before. This undefiable, heart-wrenching kind of pain that she had never known until he’d introduced her to it two years ago, the hurt almost as strong as all the love he had shown her before. And it was at this moment that she could not even remember anymore, if it had ever really gone away or if that had just been another foolish, substance induced lie that she had been telling herself to make it the slightest bit easier to deal with, tricked herself into believing in the possibility of something that was so clearly out of reach, the liberating illusion of closure, a pipe dream of something she would keep reaching for and never actually get.</p><p>“Look at me.”, he said softly, his voice low and deep. He was touching her gently, his fingers barely grasping the fabric of her jacket, but it felt like he had slung a rope around her neck, holding it tight to make sure that she would not escape. In a different life with a different person, she could have just taken her coat, walked out the door and never looked back again, could have made the smart choice to leave the pain and all its allies behind for the sake of her sanity, but this was no different life, no different man, no simple affair with no strings attached that could be tossed aside as if it were anything less than it was, no snare that she could cut herself free of, no pain that could be forgotten no matter what she did, no matter what great a distance she would try to create between them, no matter what she would take to try and escape this sick momentum of reality.</p><p>And so she turned around slowly, trying to straighten as much as she could, only to have all her attempts to regain her lost composure come to waste as his concerned look met her pleading eyes, a pained gaze, begging him to let her go, like he would ever do her the favor of giving up and fulfilling this desperate desire.</p><p>“I can’t let you go like this.”, he said, his hand rising to scratch a patch of skin behind his ear, as if to wordlessly add a painful <em>‘not again’</em> that would have been too hard, too real to say out loud, even for him, too painful a reminder of all the times he had let her run away.</p><p>A sad chuckle escaped her, her breath catching audibly in her throat as it did, the strain on her lungs increasing as she kept on struggling to keep her tears at bay. He looked so helpless and he rarely did, she could count the amount of times she had seen him like this over the years on one hand. There was no way for her to deny how much she loved looking at him and how she never wanted these instances, too rare to even think about it, to come to an end, but this was a sight she never wanted to get used to.</p><p>“I’m sorry.”, she breathed out, tilting her head as she cast him a feigned smile that did not seem to be able to mend what was broken.</p><p>He shook his head, eyeing her with concern and remorse in his eyes and it was as if they were boring their way right into her mind to rob her of her last senses, drilling into her thoughts until he would find a way to turn them into something beautiful, causing her to feel headless and almost taking her last grip on her well-practiced façade in order to make her cry, the mask she was holding on to so tightly that her knuckles ached from the strain.</p><p>But she stopped him when he took a step forward, his arms rising, and she dropped her purse and held out her hands between them. “Please, don’t.”, she pressed out, because she did not want to cry, at least not here, not for him to see. Her voice was almost a whimper and it caused him to freeze in his movements for a short moment, until he decided that her reluctance only strengthened his intent.</p><p>He reached out, his hands gently brushing hers aside before he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.</p><p>His body fit hers like they were two matching pieces in a puzzle, his arms around her taking her where she felt like she belonged. With every breath she took she inhaled more of his scent, the familiar smell of wood and fire and gunpowder planted on every fiber of his shirt, on every single hair on his head, on every inch of his warm, inviting skin.</p><p>A shaky exhale escaped her, before her arms slung around his broad shoulders and she buried her face in the curve of his neck as she allowed her eyes to fill with burning tears that she could not hold back any longer.</p><p>A shiver ran through her body in a slight tremble, a faint movement she did not expect him to notice, but when his arms increased their hold on her in answer, she was reminded of that she had hardly ever been able to keep anything from him, nor needed to raise her voice and tell him something in order to have him understand. There was a comfort, she thought, in the midst of all the ways it frightened her, to know that there was someone who saw right through her and cared enough to act on it without making a big deal of it at the very same time.</p><p>The wordless reassurance of that he would be there, no matter how painful it was to either one of them.</p><p><em>Never let me go</em>, a loud, vicious part of her that she had tried so hard to abandon from her brain wanted her to scream, to cling to him until his skin would be engraved with bleeding marks, shaped by the curve of her nails, to sob and cry until she would run out of tears and he would kiss her sadness away and promise her that he would never, <em>never</em> dare to do that. And she kept herself from it because she knew that it wasn’t right. Doing this to him, it was not fair.</p><p>“It’s okay, Di.”, he mumbled, his fingers brushing up her back to caress her hair, as if he had been reading her mind. The thought would have been sickening if it hadn’t been exactly what she wanted, the use of his nickname for her so much more than she could have asked for and still the last possible thing she had wanted him to say, a single syllable too close to what had once been, too undeniably tied to an illusion of everything they once could have had.</p><p>She sniffed before she raised her head, looking up to meet his eyes, his lips so close to hers that she could smell the scent of scotch on her tongue mingling with the one he wore on his breath.</p><p>His brow was furrowed, the green of his eyes that usually looked so calm and rested now flimsy and distracted with consternation over the sight of her glassy blue. He brought his hand to her cheek, his fingers catching a stray front piece of her hair and tucking it behind her ear as he eyed her in a way so full of worry and affection that she could hardly take it.</p><p>“I love you.”, he whispered, his breath rushing out to touch her lips like the most affirmative outline of his words she could have grasped.</p><p>And against all better judgement and despite the fact that she should have been doing both of them the favor to walk out and leave, she closed her glistening eyes and met his lips with hers.</p><p>Soft, velvety skin brushing against each other in the truest way she could respond to his words without feeling as if she made herself too vulnerable in front of him, baring herself before him in a way she could handle, while she let him swallow the pain he had caused her like rashes on her injured flesh that could be kissed away.</p><p>Never in her life would she have thought that loving someone could make her feel so fulfilled and so utterly hollow at the same time, that a single feeling could be as two-faced as this one.</p><p>Her tongue darted out, wandering past the lock of their lips and finding his, smooth and wet in a soft touch that soon turned to be hasty, contradicting the sharp feeling of his mustache teasing her skin. She let go of his neck, allowed her hand to settle on his stubbly cheek as she shifted aside in his hold, dipping beneath his touch as her legs weakened beneath his touch and never doubting that his arms would keep her from collapsing, even if it were to be his own downfall.</p><p>Her teeth sank into his bottom lip and a groan escaped him into her mouth, the reassurance she had needed to let her hands wander down his front and start fumbling with his belt.</p><p>He pulled away, caused her to open her eyes and find her lipstick on his skin, a questioning gaze in his eyes.</p><p>“Diane… are you sure?”, he asked gently as only he ever could. She knew he could live with whatever answer he would get, as long as it was honest, and that only made her want him more.</p><p>“I need this.”</p><p>And she did need this. Needed his fingerprints on her skin, needed his touch as she needed to breathe, needed to be with him like the reassurance of that she was still alive, that he was here with her and that he loved her the same in the present as he had in the past, loved her like she could never stop loving him, no matter how much she wanted it or how hard she tried.</p><p>She did not know if he knew all that, but he seemed to understand enough of her in the way he so often simply and wordlessly understood her, and he let her proceed, his lips meeting hers tongue first as she blindly unbuckled his belt, unzipped his jeans and slid her hand past the waistband of his boxers to feel him twitching against her touch, deliciously restrained by unnecessary fabric and the lack of space between their clothed hips.</p><p>He sighed against her lips as she flicked her wrist and began to massage his shaft between her thumb and palm, delighting in the way he started to harden for her, relishing in the way his response to her movements made her mind go blank, as if he were her drug and this their shared high.</p><p>She loathed herself for the way she used him for her own peace of mind, hated herself for the fact that she had never been as generous and selfless with him as he was with her, inflaming every inch of her skin when his hands roamed over her ass on their way to the hem of her skirt, or the way he breathlessly huffed out a quick, “Bedroom?” against her lips to make sure that she was comfortable.</p><p>“No. Here.”, she mumbled into him, her teeth lightly catching the tip of his tongue as he pushed her back into the wall in answer. He pulled a soft moan from her at the feeling of his hardening length pressing against her abdomen as he captured her between his broad frame and the cold wall, a harsh gasp escaping her, parting their lips for a quick moment of surprise when his hands slipped in beneath the hem of her skirt and roamed up to squeeze her cheeks, the rough lace of her flimsy panties digging into her heat at the sudden pressure.</p><p>The back of her head collided with the wall behind her, deep gasps for air mingling with his groan as her fingers tightened around his firm cock, his hips thrusting into her touch. She dipped her head, planting a wet, open-lipped kiss on his neck, her free hand clumsily tugging on his jeans and boxers as he pushed her skirt over her hips and drew his fingers across wet lace.</p><p>“Kurt!”, she moaned, the sound muffled against his skin, her hips bucking into his touch, and she drew the tip of her thumb across his slit to make him shudder in her arms.</p><p>His hand snuck behind the lace and she hissed against his touch, warm fingertips gliding between her folds to spread her sweet wetness on her clit to make her moan as he moved his free arm around her neck, tilting his head in a desperate search of his lips for hers.</p><p>He knew how to kiss her, knew that the swift flick of his tongue against the roof of her mouth would reward him with a new coat of wetness around his fingers, her hand tightening around his hard cock as her tongue met his in a heated movement.</p><p>He knew her body as if it were his own, knew that she was ready to be stretched by two of his fingers when he chose to surprise her by suddenly pushing them past her slick entrance, the lock of their tongues momentarily distracted as she pressed a deep moan out of her lungs, feeling him twitch against the pumping motions of her hand in answer to the sound.</p><p>Her cheeks were heating up in arousal, his fingers tinting her skin in his favorite shade of red, her voice breathy, curling around the come-hither motions of his digits against her walls, his palm kneading her clit to cleanse her from anything that was less than good in her mind, everything he wished to be able to take away from her.</p><p>His weight shifted on his feet as he stepped forward, one of his knees pushing against her inner thigh until she lifted her leg, the lacy top of her stockings coming to rest against his waist, finding support in his strength as his arm slipped out from between her neck and the wall and his hand curled around the outside of her lower thigh, fingertips digging so deeply into her flesh that she expected the frail nylon fabric to come apart beneath his touch. His strong form was pressing her into the wall, his fingers suddenly slipping out of her and his lips parting from hers.</p><p>She opened her eyes, found his green dark with arousal and pure, primal desire, and she could not remember the last time she had felt so wanted, could not wrap her head around how on earth she had managed to live so long without the feeling and make it this far.</p><p>Her mouth was still open, breathless little pants for air escaping her as she watched his glazed index and middle finger rise up between them until he drew his wet fingertips across her lips, slowly tracing across the flesh of her bottom lip and then the top one as if to close the circle, his eyes on hers, the look in them almost more profane than the action itself.</p><p>It was not usually like this between them. But she was sad today, the way he had hurt her still visible in the blue of her eyes, hardly hidden from him behind the sheer cover of need that lay on her irises like the invisible coat of her wetness on her lips that could not hide the tint of the remaining traces of her lipstick. And he knew she needed it dirty when she was sad.</p><p>Her lips parted a little wider as he finished his drawing of the shimmering circle on them as if to silently reach out for him, and he followed her request and placed his fingers into her mouth, her sticky lips closing around his knuckles, her smudged red lipstick surely about to leave a rim on his skin to later remind him of this moment, a reminder that would be enough to enlighten a feeling of momentary satisfaction but never enough to be a piece of her he could truly keep to himself, something that would never fade away and leave as he knew she would as soon as this was over.</p><p>He pushed into the curl of her hand that caressed him in lazy movements while her tongue swirled around his fingers, her touch so warm and wet and inviting that his balls tensed almost painfully beneath her hand.</p><p>She released his wet digits with a soft pop, all movements freezing in a moment of silence where there was nothing but the lock of their eyes, the tension and bittersweet anticipation in the air between them almost palpable. And then he leaned forward, his head dipping in a quick and sudden movement as he captured her bottom lip between his, sucking on her salty sweet taste that made him groan from deep within his throat.</p><p>His tongue slid over her flesh, a possessive movement, as if he were trying to claim her as his, mark her as the only thing she truly desired to be, his nails digging deep into her thigh in a grip that seemed unyielding and everlasting and almost made her believe that it could be true. And she reached down, slid her panties aside to expose the heat she could still taste in the lock of their lips to the chilly air of the hotel room and guided him into her in a swift movement that suddenly increased as he pushed his hips forward, hitting a spot within her that sent indescribable colors across her blinded sight and made her shriek against his tongue.</p><p>His hand captured her cheek, his fingers still wet in a mix of her fluids, the dampness of his touch spreading on her cheek bone, his thumb stroking roughly over her jaw line, tilting her chin upwards to give him a better angle, his teeth still holding onto her bottom lip as he began to thrust her further into the wall in quick, deep movements, like he knew she needed.</p><p>Her left hand found the wall, her palm pressing against it to allow her more stability to be able to push back into him and feel the vibration of his muffled grunts mingling with her nasal moans, her other arm wrapping around his neck to pull him even closer if it had been humanly possible.</p><p>This was not smart and she should not have come here tonight, should have let Adrian call him to inform him of the reason why they would have to prep him for the stand in the morning as he had offered, or rather advised her to let him do. She knew that rationally, this was the most stupid choice she could have possibly made in any scenario, but she was better than to try and fool herself yet again by believing that she had had an actual choice to stay away tonight, that she had not had to come here, tell him herself and ask him one of the countless questions that had been keeping her awake for too many nights in the past two years.</p><p>She needed those answers, despite the way the thought of all possible outcomes she did not want them to be alone was already enough to send hot, unwanted tears into her eyes, no matter how painfully her heart was clenching at the thought that he, <em>her</em> husband, <em>her</em> <em>Kurt</em>, Kurt, who had always been honest with her, Kurt who she’d thought would never risk hurting her, had touched another woman in the same way he was touching her now, no matter how loud she wanted to scream herself out of sanity at the indestructible knowledge of the fact that he could have and most definitely had known all that and still gone through with what he had done without making the effort of a second thought about what it would do to her.</p><p>She needed those answers. And she did not even know why, did not know if getting them was just another way to refresh the pain she knew she deserved for having failed to be worth the effort, to be enough over the cause of their marriage when it still could have been called one, and now, now that she had gone out and done the same to him because she had been drunk and high and lonely, so lonely that it had turned her into something she could barely face in the mirror, or if knowing would just be yet another failed attempt to try and get closure for all the things she had lost to her own selfishness.</p><p>People did desperate things when they were lonely. And God knew she had.</p><p>She pulled away, her head clunking audibly against the wall as her lips lost the taste of his, a dark groan escaping her as his pelvis collided with her clit, one, two, three times.</p><p>Her hold on him tightened as she pulled him closer, forcing him to break his touch on her cheek as it collided with his because she could not even stand the thought of having to look him in the eyes.</p><p>“Harder.”, she pressed out between gasped exhales, her request closer to a plea than an order, but he followed it no matter what label it should have worn, his now free hand gripping her waist before he started to plunge into her harder and faster, the sounds of their breathless voices meeting the sound of flesh clashing against flesh in the daunting silence of the air in the room, like an unwanted reality they were trying to escape together, like the most ridiculous metaphor for the echo of the unforgivable ways they had fucked up their lives, as though the night was pointing its fingers at them, pointing out the stupidity of either of them when neither had the strength to do it on their own, as if they weren’t the ones who had to take the pain of the consequences for their actions, like either one of them would feel any better when this fragile moment of fraud would be over.</p><p><em>Touch me harder</em>, her movements, her sharp cries begged him.</p><p>
  <em>Hurt me. Hurt me again as we always do.</em>
</p><p>Her hand left the wall and snuck beneath the collar of his flannel shirt, her elbow pushing against the resistance of the two upper buttons, until they came undone with a rough noise of cotton fabric ripping beneath the strain, and fell on the floor in light clicking noises that were almost not audible in noisy duet of their groans.</p><p>Her arm slung around his bare skin beneath his arm, like she was drowning in the sea of all the things they had ruined together and he was he only one in sight, the last warmth she could get her hands on before the darkness would fill her lungs and make her suffocate until it would pull her into endless nothingness. And she knew that if it were to happen, she could not have asked for someone she would rather have here with her than him.</p><p>She gasped harshly before her front teeth sank into her bottom lip, hard and deep until she tasted the sharp note of iron on the tip of her tongue, her nails digging into his skin as if a sick part of her needed them to bleed together, as if in her reality, as fucked up as she was, he deserved to be hurt by her as she had been hurt by him, as if the pain he had buried her sanity under gave her some kind of leeway to do the same to him now.</p><p>She was worse than he could ever be, was worse than having someone fall face forward and deeply in love with another person, forcing them to abandon all pride and dignity in order to open up to them, letting them believe that they were the one person they could trust beyond all doubts, only to hurt them in the most painful way imaginable and leave them alone to struggle with the impossible task of trying to shut them out of their heart again without even being able to figure out what had caused this abrupt need to do so, to stop loving someone who would always, despite everything they had done, be more lovable than anybody else could be in this cruel, dark world.</p><p>She was worse, so much worse than all of this, and the knowledge flooded her eyes with hot tears, blurring her vision of the dark hotel room, of his jacket that would smell like wood and fire and gunpowder that he had carelessly tossed over the pale cushion of an armchair, of the window front that revealed the lit skyline to her, telling stories from all around town of families, of children growing up, of people working their way into success and of first kisses that would not turn out to be disastrous mistakes, in comparison to the one they had shared in this exact building in a night that had ended in this exact hotel room.</p><p>Room number 525, where he had first touched her like he did right now. It had not been easy between them back then, and now it had turned even more complicated than she ever could have imagined.</p><p>Now, as he fucked her with all that he had like his life were depending on it, while she fucked him up with every breath of life she had left inside.</p><p>He loosened his grip on her hips that was surely about to leave dark purple marks on her hip bone, like trophies that she did not deserve to take home with her, and reached between their bodies, his fingertips coming to a halt above where they were connected to circle her clit in the fast pace of his deep thrusts, the sensation so much and so sudden that it caused her to release the loud sob she had been trying to swallow and bury somewhere where she did not have to worry about it, as she so often did with weaknesses she did not want to have.</p><p>And he was both, her strongest weakness, the one whose consequences she feared the most, and the one weakness she could not seem to stop wanting to have.</p><p>He froze in his movements as he heard the noise that had escaped her against her will and after a moment of stillness, he shifted slightly in his attempt to look at her. But her arms around him only tightened, her watery eyes staying set sternly on the bundle of leather fabric on the armrest of the chair behind him.</p><p>She needed this, could not bear the thought of letting it come to an end, let alone a premature one when she could have avoided it.</p><p>“You okay?”, he panted in her ear, as if he did not already know the answer or the fact that she would not tell him the truth anyway.</p><p>“Yes.”, she whispered, a single tear falling out the corner of her eye as she moved her hand from his shoulder down to cover his and press his fingers harder against her clit, a soft moan slipping from her lips.</p><p>And he continued, wordlessly, feigning reassurance and acting like he was not aware of her lie, pushing into her with such force that the tears began to run rogue across her cheeks as the silence was forced to claim defeat to the mingle of their groans again.</p><p>And suddenly, her fingernails dug deep into his palm, her abdomen beginning to contract in hard shockwaves of pleasure that almost felt sickening at this point, her eyes still on his jacket as she screamed his name against his neck, his voice oh so beautiful in her ear as her violently clenching walls took her with him to what would hopefully be a better place, a different life that had not been scarred by their mistakes, somewhere they could stay, a place where they could still love each other without the bitter, poisonous taste of pain in every letter of the word.</p><p>The last drops of his warmth coated her walls before his ragged movements came to a halt, her fingers, aching from the pressure digging her nails into his hand had put on her knuckles, rising to wander back around his shoulder, her arms tightening around him as her eyes finally fell shut and a serenade of deep, heart-shattering sobs escaped her into the silence.</p><p>She felt his thumb brushing softly over the outside of her thigh, still holding it against his hip to allow her to have this moment in the generosity of his kind heart she would never dare to doubt, his arm shifting between them until he wrapped it around her upper back, his slick digits sinking into her hair to gently brush through silky blonde that smelled of lavender and vanilla, the weight of his body keeping her upright as she cried against his shoulder.</p><p>Her mascara would leave ugly black stains on the worn-out cotton of his ruined shirt, she would feel the greatest embarrassment over this mindlessly open display of nothing but weakness in a mere matter of minutes and she would have to leave him alone tonight with this picture of her and the knowledge that he was the one who had let her become this, turned her into nothing more than the aftermath, the collateral damage of the consequences of his actions, even though she was the one he had always needed to protect the most.</p><p>But none of it mattered right now, not a single one out of the thousands of reasons why this was a bad idea was convincing enough to get her to stop.</p><p>And so she cried, cried until her eyes started getting irritated, sobbed loud and painfully until her voice got raspy, her throat burning in a way that could never match the unbearable pain in her chest about the loss of the man she was holding on to for dear life, and the person she had been before he had turned her into this thing she could not even begin to define.</p><p>“I’m sorry.”, she whimpered, her fragile voice an octave higher than it usually was, the syllables pressed out of her lungs in raspy hiccups.</p><p>“Don’t apologize.”, he whispered softly, his fingertips drawing soothing circles across her scalp. Later she would feel like she did not deserve to feel this safe and protected from the pain when she was in his arms, his touch on her skin, his voice soft in her ears. But right now, while he was there, he made her feel like she was worthy of it all.</p><p>“It hurts so much.”</p><p>“I know. I’m so sorry.”, he said, and she knew that part of it was a lie.</p><p>He did not actually know how much it hurt, because she had never had the decency of being honest with him, had not even allowed him to try and feel what she was feeling.</p><p>She never had. And she did not have it now.</p><p>Sniffing, her arms slowly untangled from his body. He lowered her leg, let her find her balance as he carefully placed it back against the ground, his fingers gliding out of her hair as she raised her head, the redness of her swollen eyes blandly visible even in the semi darkness of the room.</p><p>She looked at him, held his gaze for a second until the worry, the shiftlessness over seeing her like this became too much for her to take and she looked away.</p><p>“Sorry for the shirt.”, she mumbled, reaching down to rearrange her panties and push her skirt back down, feeling his eyes on her like she felt the stickiness between her thighs as she heard him zip up his pants.</p><p>“It’s fine.”, he insisted. “Sorry for the pantyhose.”</p><p>Her gaze was drawn back up to him, a small smile lighting up her face over the light familiarity of hearing him confuse pantyhose and stockings, like a light in the darkness, a small one but more than she could have asked for. And she leaned in, meeting his lips softly for a faint second that passed by too fast to make up for everything that was standing in their way.</p><p>But it was something, was enough to give her the reassurance of what she had needed to know, the reason why she had come here tonight. It was enough to remind her that he loved her, the statement written in every touch, in every movement, in everything she dared to receive from him, and it was enough to remind her of how, in the midst of all and even though it did not feel good, it still felt <em>right</em> to love him back.</p><p>She broke their kiss as softly as it had started and looked at him, her fingers brushing through her messy hair, before she snuck out between him and the wall, took her coat from the rack and her purse off the floor.</p><p>“I’ll see you tomorrow.”, she said, shrugging on her coat, her back to him until his words made her turn around to him.</p><p>“You could stay, you know?”</p><p>She gave him a small smile, her eyes apologizing for having to tell him something he already knew, for having to break the illusion that would have made seeing her go a little easier on him. “No, I can’t.”, she said, and he nodded, his hand rising as he scratched a patch of skin behind his ear.</p><p>“Di…”, he began awkwardly, making her swallow hard to try and hold onto the facade. “Are we okay?”</p><p>Her tongue slid over her bottom lip and her gaze fell from his. The silence between them was softly disturbed by the soft clicking of her heels against the floor, it echoed through the room like the ticking of a clock that showed that their time limit for today had already been extended too far.</p><p>Her fingers wrapped around the cold metal handle of the door and before she could push it down and escape, she shook her head, not daring to look back at him as she whispered, “We will be.”.</p><p>And of all the promises she had ever made him, this was the one she wanted to keep the most.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>[additional author's note from 11/11/20]</p><p>Aaaaand then she didn't. The end.</p><p>After an endless back and forth between wanting to continue this fic and ending it here and yet another sleepless night, I've decided to call it complete. At least for now. Maybe forever. After all, we all know how the storyline ends and no one needs me to continue this filler when I wouldn't give you a happy ending anyway. At least stopping it now spares us all from the Diane/Tully smut I would've had to write two chapters from this.<br/>The tumblr messages demanding updates on this fic just have begun to stress me out too much and I want this whole fandom part of my life to stay fun instead of just being an additional stressor, believe me when I say that I already have my real life for that. I'm really really sorry to everyone to whom I promised that I would continue this, I honestly feel awful, but it is what it is and this is the decision I had to make.</p><p>Hope you all understand.<br/>- N.</p>
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